Middle Cyclone
by sdbubbles
Summary: "I can't give up actin' tough; it's all that I'm made of; can't scrape together quite enough; to ride the bus to the outskirts of the fact that I need love." - "Middle Cyclone" by Neko Case. A case of a brutal murder from 1996 rips the sticking plaster off a gaping hole in one of the UCOS team's past lives. Set during series 4.
1. Open Case

**A/N: This is something I've been planning for a while now, but changed slightly when I moved to Ireland. It's set in Series 4, after Jack and Sandra's crash, but before Sandra finds out anything about her father.**

 **It might be a little bit of a slow burner, and the case is the key to the rest of the story.**

 **Sarah x**

* * *

"Strickland wants us to re-investigate this case," Sandra informed her team, pinning the crime scene photos and family photos provided onto the whiteboard. "Linda and Calvin Johnson, March 13th, 1996. Stabbed to death-"

"On the way home from a school football game. Calvin was their best defender," Brian interjected, standing up to get a better look at the photographs of an athletic-looking young boy, his blonde, blue-eyed teenage sister, and their parents behind them, looking nothing short of ecstatic. "Very promising young lad."

"Exactly," Sandra confirmed. "Now, the sister, Samantha, and her dad, Robert, were up in Edinburgh for a half-marathon. They'd been training for months. Woman and her child, stabbed to death near a school – it should have been headline news, but-"

Gerry ran his hand over his face. "Dunblane massacre," he sighed. Sandra nodded. "Happened that morning. It was all anyone was talking about."

"Yeah," she murmured. "So, anyway, the original investigating team never got to the bottom of it. Can't really blame them – they had next to nothing in the way of forensics."

Jack spoke for the first time, and he hadn't gone in the direction she had expected. "Wasn't Samantha adopted as a baby? When Linda and Robert thought they couldn't have children? And then, six years later, Calvin comes along, their little miracle?"

Sandra nodded yet again. "Yeah, they told her when she turned sixteen. I know what you're getting at, Jack," she added, her eyebrow slightly raised. "I don't think Samantha had anything to do with it. She loved her mum and brother to the ends of the Earth. Every officer on the original case said so. And she was up in Scotland when it happened, anyway." She sat down next to Gerry, and sighed as she glanced across the board once more. "I think we should make a public appeal for witnesses. We'll have the clothes and retested and the post-mortems reviewed. Gerry, I want you to come with me to speak to the dad and sister. Jack, talk to Calvin's teachers, see if there was anything untoward they remembered that day. Brian, do the same with any friends of Linda's you can find in the case file," delegated Sandra.

In all honesty, Sandra didn't know why she chose to pair herself with Gerry for this case. She knew he would only wind her up in the end, but she also knew she felt comfortable with him, despite how infuriating he was capable of being. He was always honest with her, but she didn't always like that; sometimes she would rather kill him than listen to the truth he told her. There was just something about this case that made her feel she ought to have him by her side.

She didn't like investigating child murders – none of the team did – but there was something she could not put her finger on that set her teeth on edge about this one.

Once they were in the car, Gerry asked her, "What else do we know about all this?"

"Well, Robert and Samantha upped sticks and moved to Ireland. They came back to London last summer," she told him what Strickland had told her earlier this morning. "Samantha's living in Croydon now, with her husband and little boy. Robert lives in Lewisham."

She said nothing else, mostly because there was nothing else she could tell him at this point. "What's wrong with you, Sandra?" asked Gerry. She turned her head to glance at him, somewhat alarmed that he could see that she wasn't feeling her normal self. "You look like you're waiting for a bomb to explode in your hands."

She focused on the road for a moment, eventually replying, "I just don't like these cases. You know that."

"You've never looked like this before," he commented persistently.

"Christ!" she exclaimed in irritation. "You're like a bloody dog with a bone, Gerry! I'm fine! I just want to catch the bastard who did it and give the family some answers. Is that such an awful thing?!"

She felt Gerry's stare burning into her. "Alright, keep your hair on!" Sandra did not talk back to him, nor did she want to. How could she tell him what was wrong when she couldn't even figure it out herself? "You know when you're adopted?" Gerry asked.

"Hmm," Sandra acknowledged, barely listening to him.

"Well, do you have your original birth certificate as well, or just your adoption certificate?"

"Both, if you're adopted and you get access to your original birth certificate. Though the adoption certificate looks exactly like the birth certificate anyway, so there's no way of knowing unless someone decides to tell you. Samantha's adoption certificate will have looked just like Calvin's birth certificate, but it's filed in a different place. Even though the adoption certificate is her birth certificate for all legal intents and purposes, her original birth certificate – if her birth mother registered her before giving her up – still exists. So if she was registered by her biological mother, and she wanted to find out who that was, she could, because the record will still exist," she finished explaining, although feeling she had not done so very clearly.

Again, she felt Gerry's gaze eating through her. "How do you know so much about it?" he demanded suspiciously.

"Old case I worked on years ago," she shrugged, quickly getting rid of his question. "We're here," she added, nodding towards a house to their left as she slowed the car to a halt in a parking space. "Try and be tactful, Gerry."

"I'm always tactful!" he defensively exclaimed. "When am I not tactful?!"

Sandra snorted, ringing the door bell. She found herself telling him, "I'd write you a list but I'd be writing all year."

A young woman opened the door, a young boy held to her hip, a smile upon her face. Her thick blonde hair was tied back into the messiest of buns and she was obviously halfway through doing her make up – there was a foundation bottle and brush in the hand not supporting her son. "Hi," she smiled. "Can I help?"

"Who's there, Sammy?!" called a man, whose Irish accent surprised Sandra more than it should have. "If it's your man next door wanting to borrow my tools again, tell him to fu-" he stopped when he saw who was at the door from the end of the hallway. "Sorry 'bout that," he grinned.

Sandra allowed a small smile at the young family, seeing nothing but sheepish grins in return. "I'm Detective Superintendent Sandra Pullman; this is my colleague, Gerry Standing. We're re-opening the investigation into the deaths of Linda and Calvin Johnson."

She watched with dismay as the light in Samantha's bright blue eyes faded and her wide smile faltered at the mention of her mother and brother's murders. "Come in," she beckoned them, and Sandra watched as she fixed the smile back onto her face. "It's been a long time since anybody talked about that," she sighed, passing her son to her husband.

"Come on, Jamie," grinned the Irishman, though Sandra could see he was worried. "Let's go and do a fry up. God knows I need one after that shift! You know, I'm just after gettin' a smack to the face?! Poor Daddy, eh?!" The child giggled at his father's imitation of the punch in the face he had received. "Charmin', Jamie-boy. Just charmin'. You're gas, you know that?"

There was the sound of Gerry's low chuckle; Sandra briefly wondered if that was how he had been with his children when they had been babies. Had he been the comical dad, always the good guy?

Sandra looked at Samantha, who was busying herself with finishing her make up. "Sorry about this, but I'm heading out soon," she apologised, looking over her small mirror at them. "What do you want to know?"

Gerry looked at Sandra, and she knew what he was thinking: why wasn't Samantha more upset than this?

"We want to know what you can remember about the day your mum and brother died," Sandra gently said. "Anything. Even the smallest, inconsequential detail might be a clue."

Samantha bitterly laughed at Sandra's words, leaving the older woman taken aback. "I wasn't even here, detective. I was up in Edinburgh with my dad. We're in the hotel room, watching the news, hearing all about that awful shooting in Dunblane, and my dad gets a call to say Mum and Cal are dead. That is literally all I know. Nobody told me anything else."

"You didn't find anything out afterwards?" Gerry persevered, obviously hoping the eleven intervening years had jogged her memory.

"No," Samantha firmly replied. "I'm sorry. I've tried and tried for years to work out what happened, who killed them, but I don't know anything except that they were murdered on a residential street," she continued, tears welling up in her bright, piercing eyes. "I wish I could help you, Mr. Standing, but I can't. You could ask my dad, though. He might have remembered something." Her voice was rising as she became more upset, causing her husband to come back to the doorway to watch them in utter silence, his young son still pinned to his side with one arm.

Samantha was telling the truth; her luminous blue eyes were burning with the desire to be helpful, and the frustration that she couldn't tell them anything useful. "It's alright," Sandra assured her, acutely conscious of the surprised look Gerry was shooting her. She reached out and grasped Samantha's hand reassuringly; it wasn't her 'normal' behaviour, but she felt like Samantha needed it. "We'll talk to your dad, anyway. Can you think of anyone else your mum was close to?"

"My aunt, Cassandra," Samantha said. "Last I heard, she was over in Wandsworth, but I've not seen her since the funeral. The last time I saw her, she was trying to tell me something, but my dad interrupted her. Never did get to know what she wanted to get out her system," she wistfully sighed.

"OK," Sandra smiled. "Thanks. We'll leave you to it," she added, nodding her head towards the make up in Samantha's hands.

Samantha showed them out, and as soon as the door was closed behind them, Gerry rounded on her. Sandra should have expected it, but she was caught off-guard. "When did you become Mother Theresa?"

Sandra looked at her car to avoid his gaze; she was not able to tell him what she felt, because she was unsure of it herself. But cogs were turning in her head already. Why had Samantha's aunt not spoken to her niece in eleven years, particularly after the trauma of losing half her family? Why had Robert taken Samantha to Ireland, only to return to London once she was married with a child?

"Sandra, why didn't you push her?" Gerry demanded. "She was sixteen when it happened. She was old enough to know things. You didn't ask where she was going today, or where she works, or what her father's doing now. You didn't even ask the husband's name. How do we know she ain't lying?"

He had a point, in retrospect. She had neglected to press for details about her time in Ireland, or her current life. And, if he had been the one to be so off his game, she would have been ripping strips off him right now. He was not out of his rights to want to know what she had been thinking, even if she was his superior.

Sandra put her seatbelt on and started the engine. "I just know. Call it my instinct," she told him, recalling an old argument they had once had over a case left unsolved on a retired detective's instinct. "Yes, Gerry," she added, seeing his surprised expression when she glanced around to pull out onto the road safely. "I still have one."

* * *

 **Please feel free to review and tell me what you think!  
Sarah x**


	2. Neglect

**A/N: Hey! Thank you if you've been reading/reviewing so far!**

 **Sarah x**

* * *

Sandra was now sitting at her desk, kicking herself for not being more thorough. Gerry was right – if they had persisted a little longer with Samantha, they probably could have got a lot more out of her. But Sandra, of all people, was more concerned about hurting Samantha's feelings than pressing her for answers. Why?

They had got next to nothing out of Robert Johnson, who was adamant that he had not believed Cassandra was about to tell Samantha anything important when he interrupted their last conversation. Sandra was in two minds as to whether or not she should believe him; he had been most convincing, but she was used to being lied to, and it was a given that _someone_ connected to this case wasn't being entirely truthful. The only useful thing he told them was Cassandra's married – and current – surname: Coventry. He claimed not to know where exactly she lived, though.

She had tasked Brian with tracking Cassandra down, and Jack had just returned from speaking with Calvin's teacher, who, unsurprisingly, hadn't noticed anything out of the ordinary. But there was no way this was a random attack, either; she could feel it in her gut. Jack, however, was still thinking about Samantha in this case. She could tell that he thought her circumstances were important here. Sandra was not convinced, for, by all accounts, she had been treated by all the family like a blood relative.

"I've asked forensics to scan the clothes and bags for DNA that isn't Calvin or Linda's," Jack said at her office door, making Sandra jump. She only realised now that she had been staring at the wood of her desk, her head in her hands. "They'll be able to identify them by relating them with one another. Also, I just spoke with an old coroner friend of mine, Lenny. He looked over the reports in his lunch hour. Owed me a favour. The original report made reference to abnormalities in Calvin's blood chemistry, and damage to the pancreas. He reckons Calvin had untreated type one diabetes."

"Why wasn't that noted by the original investigating officers?!" demanded Sandra, flicking through the file impatiently. "Idiots!"

"Probably so overstretched that it slipped their minds," Jack admitted with a heavy sigh.

Sandra acknowledged how tense she was, and made a split second decision. "Jack, when Brian finds Cassandra Coventry, I want the two of you to go and talk to her. I've got to sort out this public appeal." The truth was that she felt they were better equipped than she was to do it today, but she wasn't about to admit it.

"Alright," he agreed. He sat down opposite her, with an expression that told her he was going to say something he had to brace himself for. "Sandra, I know you don't think Samantha was involved, but isn't it worth investigating who her birth parents were, in case _they_ are involved?"

Sandra stared at him. What was it with everyone being better detectives than her today? "OK," she sighed. "I'll get Gerry to ask Robert what he knows about where Samantha came from, give him more to work with."

She was wary of this line of investigation, because she didn't want to cause even more disruption to Samantha's life. "Are you alright, Sandra?" he asked her gently.

"Yeah, fine," she quickly answered him, fixing a smile onto her face, just as Samantha had done this morning. He returned that smile, but didn't seem like he truly believed her. It was with a last, worried glance at her that Jack left for his own desk, and Sandra vaguely heard him pass on her orders to Gerry and Brian.

She didn't like this case. It made her nervous. It made her think of things she would rather forget, and she didn't know why. There was no connection to her anywhere in this case.

She saw the little boy in his father's arms in her mind, little Jamie, half-English, half-Irish, who had never known his grandmother or uncle. Who never would know them. His bright, blue eyes had been innocent and happy nonetheless, unlike his mother's, who had that glint of a hard life in her eyes.

While talking to Robert Johnson, they had managed to gather some information that Sandra had neglected to seek from Samantha. According to Robert, Samantha was a nurse, and her husband – Marcas Brennan – was an officer of the airport security team at Heathrow. They had met at school in County Meath, not long after Robert and Samantha moved there. None of it was useful information, but it was good background knowledge.

She watched Gerry dialling Robert Johnson's phone number, while Brian was hard at work and Jack was looking into the coroner's report further, since there had been details missed in the official case notes. She did feel just a bit guilty for pushing the work onto them; sorting out the public appeal wasn't going to monopolise her time like she almost wanted it to. After all, Strickland usually did most of the organising anyway.

A small voice in her head reminded her that she was neglectful. She always had been. It was why she sat here, divorced and childless and, half the time, downright unhappy. She had neglected one part of her life to ensure the other thrived, and she really did regret it. It wasn't that she lacked pride in her achievements when it came to her career; it was more that she regretted what she had sacrificed to reach those goals, from quite a young age.

When she looked up again, it was Gerry who stood at the door. "Robert Johnson was able to tell me that Samantha was born on the 7th of March 1980, at the Royal Sussex County Hospital. She was two weeks early but otherwise fine. Doesn't know anything about the mother, except that she was young, and that he and Linda kept the name Samantha was given at birth."

Sandra's blood ran slightly cold, but she shook it off.

"OK, thanks, Gerry," she smiled at him.

"Got a few contacts who can help me find her birth mother," he added, and she didn't have the heart to tell him he didn't need to investigate it any deeper. She knew he liked doing these things, and there was no reason to tell Samantha anything unless she wanted to know. "I'll crack on, then," he announced, rubbing his hands together. Sandra had forgotten how much Gerry enjoyed doing the old-fashioned digging. He turned to leave but doubled back. "You went to Sussex University, didn't you? You'll know roughly where the hospital is?"

"Yeah," she grudgingly answered him. "Why?"

"Just wondering," he replied, obliviously happy with life.

For the first time in her career, she didn't feel up to the job. She felt like she needed to sleep until it was all over, that one of her boys would come through for her with some harebrained yet brilliant answer to the mystery of the murder of Linda and Calvin Johnson.

And if she sat here much longer, she was going to lose the plot. Sandra had always been able to ignore even the most traumatic events in her life, even when she was only a child, but today she couldn't ignore what her head was telling her. It was telling her to listen to her heart. Her heart was telling her that it couldn't take another assault just now. It told her to be selfish. To go home, even though it was only lunchtime. It told her to use her instinct for self-preservation, to stop neglecting herself, even if she neglected the rest of the world instead.

So Sandra put on her coat and picked up her bag, already feeling guilty. It didn't help when Gerry and Jack eyed her with surprise, and Brian with suspicion, when she said, "I'm going to go home, guys. Not feeling too great. If you get anywhere this afternoon, call me. I'll have my mobile, anyway."

"But what if there's a big development and we need you here?" protested Brian.

At this, Sandra's patience finally drained away completely. "I'm not running a bloody crèche here, Brian!" she snapped at him. "You're all grown men. I'm sure you can handle an afternoon without me. God knows, a couple of years ago, you couldn't wait to get shot of me every afternoon!"

Without waiting for an argument from any of them, Sandra stalked out of the room, just hoping she didn't walk into Strickland. That would have been worse than the looks on the faces of any of her boys, because at least they knew, deep down, she never meant to snap at them in circumstances like these. Strickland, unfortunately, didn't know her as well as them, and probably would be very offended if she spoke to him in the manner she had just spoken to Brian Lane.

She was hopelessly thankful to get to her car without an interruption, and she sat in the driver's seat, her head spinning. She had not lied to her team – she did not feel well. In fact, she felt quite ill.

* * *

Jack looked at Gerry, and then at Brian, with a twisted knot in his stomach. He was worried about Sandra; it wasn't that she felt unwell – that could have been any of them. It was the look on her face. She had not worn that expression of self-loathing, frustration, fear and anguish since she was eighteen years old. Not in Jack's presence, at least. And if he remembered correctly, that expression was the warning sign, to _only_ warning sign, anyone ever got when Sandra Pullman was going to push the self-destruct button.

"Last time she looked like that," Jack said in a low voice to the other two, "she'd just finished her A-Levels, and went on the bender to end all benders. Would've given you two a run for your money," he added with a wry yet humourless smile. "To this day, she doesn't remember me taking her home that night. I don't think she even remembers it happened."

"Everybody did that when they finished their exams," Gerry rolled his eyes at Jack's concern.

"Not like this," Jack retorted. "Trust me. She did the same thing at least once a week that summer, until she went to university."

Brian didn't say a word, but Jack knew Brian had experience with how easy it was to turn to drink when life wasn't as good as it could be.

It was Gerry who spoke again, this time obviously sharing the concern Jack felt for their boss and friend. "She didn't look great this morning," he admitted. "Bit my 'ead off for asking a simple question." Gerry took his glasses off and added, in line with his usual joking yet chauvinistic tendencies, "Maybe it's her time of the month or somethin'," with a non-committal shrug.

It was Jack and Brian's turn to roll their eyes at Gerry, for even having four daughters, three ex-wives and a woman for a commanding officer had taught him very little about women. "Not everything a woman does is hormonal," Brian pointed out.

"Yeah, well, trust me, it don't do nothin' to make matters better," Gerry grumbled.

But Gerry's suggestion that it was a 'woman thing' did nothing to soothe Jack's mind, and he found himself debating whether or not to go after her. The chances of her telling him why she looked like that were slim to none, but he didn't like the idea of her being unchecked today. Sandra, after all, had been there for him, on his side, for as long as he could remember working with her. Didn't he owe her the same?

But she wouldn't thank him if he interfered, or if he insinuated that he didn't believe her when she said she didn't feel well.

After all, Sandra wasn't eighteen any longer. She was an adult in her own right, with the responsibility and ability to look after herself. Or so she kept telling him.

* * *

 **Please feel free to leave me a review and tell me your thoughts!  
Sarah x**


	3. Lies

**A/N: This chapter is split between the points of view of Sandra and Gerry; I think it's important to see an insight into the other characters involved, because they're the ones caught in the situation with her.**

 **Thanks, as always to everyone who has read and reviewed so far.**

 **Sarah x**

* * *

Sandra sat on a chair in the local pub; today, she felt she would have been best placed here from sunrise until sundown. After all, she had used drunken idiocy to solve all sorts of problems she she had been fourteen years old, hadn't she? But in the real world, rather than solving her issues, she had only created more difficulties for herself. It was only her unyielding and stubborn nature that forced her to press on in an almost robotic fashion. A weaker being would have crumbled long ago if they tried to live her life. She was, despite her many other unforgivable failings, quite proud of her resilient personality.

Aside from the knowledge that she was strong and intelligent, Sandra's self-esteem was far from high. She was skilled in the art of pretending otherwise, but she was doubt-ridden about a great many matters in her life. It was never easy for her to be able to tell if she had done enough or become enough to be considered a worthwhile person. All through her adult life, she had known she had a huge amount of redeeming to do. Sandra didn't even know if her attempts would ever redeem her.

She, like every other human being, had made mistakes; the difference was that hers had not been small, and she had made decisions she still questioned – still divided every question until the questions were complete – to this day. Not that she ever managed to answer her own questions. Even as she sat now, large wine glass in her hand, Sandra was still not convinced she had done the right things in the situations with which she was faced.

The basis of everything she strived to be was built upon strength. Strength of character, strength of mind, strength of hope...in short, her ability to remain true to herself when the world attempted to push her in the opposite direction.

Sometimes, she allowed herself to wonder what she would have become had she made different – probably better – choices. She definitely wouldn't have been here, with this job and this career. Or maybe she still would have managed it. Did her nearly infamous drive to succeed come from herself, or was it fuelled by an effort to distance herself from the person she once was?

Maybe she still was that person, though. Fundamentally, at her very heart, maybe she was the same, never changing, only hoping she had. Could she have permitted that to happen? Sandra Pullman, the woman who lectured Gerry Standing on a regular basis for similar sins...could she have blinded herself to her own being?

Was she wrong to be so stubborn, so obstinate? Did those people who had advised her to choose a different path known better than she had?

Maybe.

Looking at the mess she felt inside her right now, she could no longer stubbornly assert to herself that she must have been right. Sandra couldn't help but feel that if she had been right, she wouldn't feel the way she did about her life. Somewhere, she had gone wrong, and she just knew she was going to sit here drinking until she worked out which of her many bad decisions was making her feel this way.

* * *

The next morning, Gerry was surprised to find that, for once, he had arrived at work before Sandra had. As to whether or not that was a positive thing, well, the jury was still out on the matter. He had no way of knowing Sandra at the moment. In the course of a few hours, she had closed herself off from everyone who loved her.

On his desk was a brown envelope – a welcome distraction from worrying about Sandra – and as he picked it up, Jack told him, "A Thomas Sharkey dropped that off for you. Said to down down before you read it, because it gave him the shock of his life."

What an odd warning to give about a stranger's birth certificate. He and Thomas were old mates, and they enjoyed a pint and a whine about life, but they were not really all that close. Ignoring the caution, he wandered over to the kettle while he tore into the envelope. He picked up an old mug from the shelf and instantly dropped it, leaving t in bits on the floor below.

Even though he could feel Brian and Jack's stares digging through him, he could do nothing but stare in disbelief at document in his hand.

Was this a joke? Surely Sandra must have known about this? Or was she oblivious?

Gerry briefly considered hiding it from Jack and Brian, but he wasn't quick enough, and eve if he was, he wasn't convinced it was in anyone's best interest to start keeping secrets, or to start lying to one another. They'd had brushes with such behaviour before, and he realised it never panned out very well for anyone.

So before he could do or say anything, his colleagues were reading over his shoulder, as stunned as he was.

"Should we tell her?" Brian whispered, glancing to make sure Sandra wasn't about to burst in the door.

"We don't have to," Jack reasoned carefully. "Gerry could just say that his friend couldn't get his hands on it. She wasn't that keen on the theory, anyway. Didn't seem to think it held much merit." Gerry stared at him. "Well, I'm not sure I want to tell her. Are you?!"

It was unusual behaviour on Jack's part. "Who are you and what've you done with Jack Halford?!" Jack, who'd known Sandra the longest, telling an outright lie of this magnitude? Had the world gone utterly mad?!

"Maybe Jack's right, Gerry," Brian said. "I mean. I don't think it would do any good to tell her."

"What about Samantha?" demanded Gerry, remembering the girl who had never known her birth parents, who didn't have the first clue as to where she came from.

Jack shrugged and answered, "She's never gone looking, so no reason to tell her. And if, one day, she does want to know, she can get the information herself, through the proper channels." Gerry glared at the pair of them. Wasn't it better for the truth to be out in the open, at least on one side? When did his friends become so dishonest?

After a long and strained pause, Brian implored, "Gerry, think about it. Does she really need to know? She might be better off ignorant."  
"There are things a person needs to know!" bellowed Gerry, finally losing his cool with them.

"And there are things certain people ought never to find out," Jack evenly countered, his voice calm and collected. "Believe me, Gerry, you might do more harm than good. It isn't relevant to the case, and we know that now. There's no need to tell her anything. She's focused on this case; let's keep it that way, hmm?"

Gerry was furious. "What happened to being a good friend?!" he loudly demanded of them. "What happened to being straight with a person?"

"You're blinded by how much you love her!" Jack argued with him. "You only want to be honest with her because you've lied to everyone else you've ever loved and it's always ended badly. It's just unfortunate that you've chosen to be honest on the one occasion that would cause the most damage!" Jack half-shouted. Gerry was stung by his remarks; it was an unwritten rule within UCOS that they did not bring up one another's past mistakes, and they definitely did not discuss Gerry's tense, warm and ambiguous relationship with Sandra Pullman.

The pair glared daggers at each other, with Brian looking on in horror. Gerry had only ever fallen out with Brian once, years ago over the unimportant matter of the size of their pay slips. Never had there been a dispute of this size between the retired members of the UCOS team.

"Knives away, boys," came a silky yet exhausted-sounding voice they all knew too well by now. "God, I leave you alone for half an hour and you're set to kill each other," she mocked them. Gerry tore his gaze from Jack to look straight at Sandra. Though she was making fun of them, she was obviously totally knackered, and quite probably hungover. "I don't want to hear it," she snapped at them. "Get a grip."

She stormed off to her own office, clearly still in a foul mood. Luckily, she had not spotted what was in Gerry's hand, and he managed to hastily pocket it behind her back.

He watched Sandra through the open blinds, seeing that she was no better than she was yesterday; she was possibly even worse. Had Jack been right yesterday, when he insinuated that Sandra had been bunking off to go on a bender? Since when did Sandra Pullman do such things? If he did it, she would have gutted him like a fish.

All sense of self-preservation abandoning him, knowing full well Sandra might bite his head off, Gerry followed her to her desk, sitting do opposite her. While she said nothing to him, and didn't even acknowledge that he was in the room with her, he felt Jack and Brian watching him, knowing how worried they were that he was about to open his mouth and spill it all.

Sandra was flicking through her case file, searching for something they must have missed. She hadn't told him to leave her, but she also hadn't invited him into a conversation with her; she knew he was there, because she always could sense him when he was around. It was almost scary, that ability of hers to know when he was there.

Rather than speak to her at first, Gerry cautiously reached out, and pulled Sandra's right hand from the file she was examining. It was got her attention, at least – she looked up at him with a strange, indecipherable expression upon her face. "Are you alright?" he finally asked her.

"Yeah," she instantly answered him, her smile wide and entirely false. She did, however, squeeze his hand, and he squeezed back, unsure of whether or not her action had been conscious. "Look, I'm going to go back and speak to Samantha again, question her properly." Gerry felt a little guilty for being so hard on her the previous morning. Yes, he had been frustrated, but he ought to have realised that Sandra wasn't being useless on purpose.

"I'll go with you," Gerry instantly volunteered. Sandra eyed him with suspicion, but he did not care. He could see she really was ignorant to what she could have been about to walk into; he wasn't about to let her go it alone.

Sandra huffed. "Fine, then," she agreed. "But I'm going now, so get a move on."

Gerry smiled at her and returned to his desk for his coat, which he had not yet hung on the rack. Sandra was already in one of her difficult moods and he didn't much fancy making it any worse by delaying her more than need be. "We're going back to Samantha's," Gerry informed Jack and Brian, aware of his own dark and bitter tone.

"Please," Jack whispered to him, "don't say anything. She'll only lose her head. And she'll kill you," he reminded Gerry with a bit of a smirk.

Gerry simply nodded, for Sandra's potential reaction was no joking matter. It was abundantly clear to him that the other two had no intention of ever putting themselves in that position, which Gerry found to be incredibly disloyal. Sandra was meant to be their friend, and friends didn't lie to one another, unless the truth would put them in harm's way.

They hadn't even considered telling the truth, all because they were worried about the idea of the reaction they would receive. None of them even knew how that conversation might go, either, because Sandra was notoriously unpredictable. Almost volcanically so. She could take the world standing still with dignity and absolute calm, yet if he cup of tea was all wrong, its maker might be a dead man walking.

But now was not the time to get worked up.

Now was the time to stand by Sandra, play it by ear, and hope that everything didn't go pear shaped. After all, who else was going to do that for her?

* * *

 **Please feel free to leave a review to tell me what you think!  
Sarah x**


	4. Instinct

**A/N: So here is the fourth chapter! It's a little longer than the rest, but that's mainly because it took a different direction than I intended it to. I've also picked up a fair bit of Irish slang already, so forgive me for that!**

 **Sarah x**

* * *

Sandra sat in the car outside Samantha's home, almost wishing Gerry would go in for her; she didn't like being in that house. She couldn't give a reason, of course, but there was a sense of foreboding here for her. However, she had to beat down this unpleasant notion: there was, after all, a job to do, and Gerry couldn't do it for her.

So out of the car she stepped, and knocked on Samantha's door, quarter of an hour earlier than she had done yesterday. The scene was the same as yesterday – Samantha opened the door with Jamie resting at her hip, and her husband was saying, "It's too early in the mornin' for people. Only just got away from them!" Sandra smiled slightly, knowing just how he felt at the moment. Samantha didn't ask their business; she just invited them in with a resigned look on her face.

"I thought I got off lightly yesterday," Samantha sighed, sitting Jamie down on her lap as they all took a seat. "Take it you didn't get anything helpful out of Dad or Cassandra."

"Not really," agreed Gerry, before Sandra could answer. She shot a glare at him, daring him to speak for her again.

Sandra turned back to Samantha and said, "Your dad just says what you said. My colleagues spoke to your aunt last night, and it seems that she was at home taking care of her husband when it happened." She was only relaying what Gerry had told her in the car on the way here about their progress yesterday afternoon and evening; apparently, they hadn't wanted to disturb her, and had not been keen on talking to a grouchy, caffeine-deprived Sandra Pullman first thing in the morning. Was she really _that_ bad?

Samantha sighed again. "Yeah, Henry has type one diabetes. Damn near killed him that few days we were away. Cassandra was dealing with his insulin and everything for him, because he was a bit out of it."

Sandra remembered what had been said about the coroner's report, but decided not to say anything – after all, type on diabetes wasn't common, but it wasn't rare, either, and it wasn't proven that Calvin really had been diabetic. Her thoughts were interrupted by Marcas' deep voice saying to them, "You'll have a cup in your hand?"

Sandra could only look at her hand and back at Marcas, unable to keep her face from looking blank. "Would you like a cup of tea?" Samantha asked them kindly.

"Oh, yeah, ta!" Gerry said with a grin, while Sandra merely nodded.

"Sorry," Samantha apologised, shifting Jamie's weight on her knee for a moment. "I forget not everyone knows the Irish slang like I do," she smiled.

They listened to Marcas putting the kettle, only to hear an annoyed call less than a minute later. "Christ on a bike!" shouted Marcas, clearly irritated by something. "Sammy, there's no milk!"

"I got two pints yesterday!"

"You're after makin' a huge pot of hot chocolate with Nutella at two this mornin', ye eejit!"

"Oh, yeah!" Samantha called back, hitting her forehead with her hand. "Shit. I'll nip out and get some." She stood up and grabbed her purse and keys from the coffee table. It took Sandra a moment to process what Samantha said when she added, "Here, could you take Jamie for a minute or two?" with her arms outstretched, obviously trying to pass the infant to the police officer.

Feeling a little dazed, intending to say they didn't really need a cup of tea and that nobody needed to rush out for milk just because they were here, Sandra somehow found herself taking Samantha's son from her, hearing Samantha run out the door. She looked at Gerry and whispered, " _Help me_!" as she glanced from the child to him and back again. Sandra was not experienced with children. Yes, she had held a few babies and helped a few kids out, but she often made a conscious effort not to encounter them.

And yet here she was, staring into the blazing blue eyes of an infant, who was probably about eighteen months old at this point. He giggled at her and, as dispirited and as low as she felt, she couldn't help but smile at him. She let him sit down on her lap, and he instantly leaned into her chest, contentedly fingering the lapel of her coat.

Gerry nudged her and asked, "Why didn't you ever have kids?"

Preferring not to answer, Sandra glared at him to prevent him from ever asking again. However, she allowed her head to drop and inhale the scent of the child in her arms; she had never allowed herself to know that scent of an infant's head, and it had been entirely intentional. Marcas returned and said to her, "Blimey, he likes you!" Sandra smiled slightly, not quite knowing what to make of Jamie's reaction to her. "He doesn't normally like new people much."

"Neither does she," grinned Gerry. God, he was asking for a slap this morning.

"Look," Marcas said. "There's enough milk there for a few cuppas. I just wanted to speak to you without Sammy here. To tell you to tread carefully. Samantha was jarred last night. Legless. She doesn't drink like that, which means pokin' around at what happened to her mam and brother is hurtin' her."

Sandra focused her attention on Jamie, rather than admit that opening this case up again perhaps hadn't been wise. She, too, had been very drunk last night. She, too, was struggling to have any faith in herself because of this case.

Jamie giggled into her face, his body warm and innocent against hers, which was war-torn and battle-scarred. "We're doing our jobs, Mr. Brennan," Sandra answered him sharply. Finally, she was wearing the head of a detective once more; it was not uncommon for someone who was implicated in a crime to try and halt an investigation on the grounds that it was traumatic for a loved one.

"I know that," he assured her gently. "And it's Marcas." Sandra didn't speak. She only nodded her head. "Look, I'm as keen to find out who killed the two of them as you are, but Sammy hasn't spoke about this more than a handful of times. She don't like it, and I can't say I blame her. She acts tough, but she's still a person. It still hurts."

Sandra rubbed Jamie's back, considering Marcas as he spoke to her. Her instinct was telling her he was only looking out for his wife – plus, no man wanted to deal with their drunken wife boiling milk and Nutella in a pot at two in the morning.

"So could you just be a bit gentle with her? Please?" he implored as his conclusion.

He looked almost exactly like Gerry, Jack and Brian had done this morning: worried. His concern was most definitely Samantha's mental wellbeing at this point…was that what worried Gerry so much these days? All the times he had challenged her decisions, particularly when they pertained to her own personal safety, and only now was she piecing together what that might possibly mean.

Unable to find words to speak, Sandra nodded again, making sure she smiled as she did so.

Marcas started talking again, and Sandra found herself glad her had veered from the subject of their inquiry. "I know meself, there's more than one way to skin a cat," he grinned.

"I was after holdin' this guy for havin' cocaine in his flask the other day, and he wasn't too pleased. Posh eejit. Givin' it, 'Oh, I'm gonna call your superiors!' and all that crap," he continued. "Anyway, I don't have my name on a badge like the Garda yokes do, so he's sayin', 'I want your name.' Says it 'bout ten times. Finally, he says, 'I demand your name!' So I turn 'round to him and say, 'Well, you can't fuckin' have it. It's mine. I'm usin' it!'"

Sandra, in spite of herself, couldn't help but burst out laughing, and felt Gerry next to her do the same; Jamie was laughing because everyone else was laughing, as babies do. "Shut him right up. Never seen somebody look so shocked in all me life," Marcas laughed heartily. "Me manager gets in, and the bloke complains that I was bold to him, but me manager pulls me over to where this muppet can't hear us and says, 'Marcas, hang your head and let him think I'm reprimandin' you. And keep a straight face.' Even me manager thought it was funny!"

Sandra laughed again, her face against Jamie's head; why hadn't Marcas taken his son back yet? She was almost a perfect stranger, and if she had a child, she didn't think she would allow someone like her to hold onto the infant this long. She feared that somehow her touch would transfer all the negative, unpleasant traits and thoughts of hers into Jamie, but at the same time, she was too comfortable with him sitting on her to get Marcas to take him. Jamie was very comfortable, too, which unnerved Sandra to no end.

On the periphery of her field of vision, she spotted Gerry's intense gaze upon her. What was he thinking? Why was he watching her? She must have been doing something wrong, but she didn't know enough to be able to know what it was.

Her confidence knocked, she said to Marcas, "May I use your bathroom, please?"

"Sure you can," he smiled, standing to take Jamie from her. "Up the stairs, first door on your right." Sandra nodded and headed upstairs. She didn't need to use the bathroom, but she had needed to put Jamie down, since she obviously was doing something wrong there, and to escape Gerry's penetrating gaze.

Once in the bathroom, she slid down the door to her knees, unable to understand what she was experiencing. Her self-assurance was diminishing, leaving her more insecure by the minute. Gerry wasn't helping matters, staring at her like she had ten heads.

From the bathroom floor, Sandra heard the front door open, and the voice of Samantha Brennan announcing she had a carton of milk. Where she needed to be was in the living room with the family of the victims of the case she was investigating, not on the bathroom floor.

But she couldn't get up.

Or maybe it was more that she didn't _want_ to get up. Here, she was safe, for she didn't need to do anything. There was nothing she could do wrong here. No mess she could make. No crisis she could create. She was forty-six years of age. She had dealt with more than her fair share of stress, turmoil and anguish. It was not like she could not deal with life. It was herself she could no longer cope with. The guilt of everything she had done wrong had been creeping up on her for years, and now it felt like a blow to the head.

But what was bringing it on? Why was she being this moronic?

This case.

It was this _bloody_ case.

She remembered hearing about the original investigation, and how the only evidence of foul play was the pool of blood the two people were found in. She knew the case had been badly handled, and she wanted to rectify that, but she couldn't help but feel that she was only making matters worse for everyone.

That girl downstairs, that young mother, was hurting because of this investigation. The toddler who never knew his grandmother or uncle had to know something in the air had changed in the past day. The husband was dealing with the fallout.

And yet she did this for a living without batting an eye.

Sandra lurched forward in fright as knuckles rapped the door. How long had she been in here? "Sandra," called Gerry, "I need to tell you somethin'!"

Sandra scrambled to her feet, pushed her hair out of her face and unlocked the door. Gerry barged in and shut the door behind him again. "I just spoke to forensics," he told her as he locked the door, "and they-" But he stopped talking upon seeing Sandra. "What's wrong?" he demanded quickly.

"Never mind. What did forensics say?" she deflected.

Gerry eyed her with both care and suspicion, but told her, "Calvin wasn't Robert's son. His blood type was AB negative. Linda was A negative. Robert is O positive. It's impossible for him to be Calvin's father."

"Shit!" Sandra hissed. " _Shit_...Does Robert know this? Does Samantha?"

"I don't know," answered Gerry. "You sure you're alright? I've seen corpses with more colour."

"I'm fine," she answered, trying to brush away his concern. It wasn't effective in the slightest. "Gerry, stop looking at me like that. I'm a big girl. A grown woman. I can look after myself."

"Could've fooled me," snapped Gerry. That look on his face was not one she liked; it was the expression he wore when he knew something she didn't, and that something wasn't something he wanted to tell her. But there was something else there, too. Something she wasn't sure she wanted to see – he seemed to, in this moment, love her.

His hand was on her arm, leaving her wondering what to do. "It's this case," she admitted. "OK? You were right. There was something about it the first time around I didn't like, and I don't like it now, either."

Gerry wanted to tell her something, she could see it a mile off, but he was holding his tongue. What was it?

But she didn't ask, because she was scared of the answer. When did she become scared? When did she start having more questions for herself than she had answers? "If you knew something about a friend that they didn't know themselves," Gerry began, only confusing Sandra even more, "but that friend knowing would just hurt them and it wouldn't do no good for nobody, and that it would impact on their work if they knew, would you tell them?"

"I don't know," she replied honestly. "It would depend on what it was. Why?"

"Just wonderin'," he answered. He suddenly looked like he wished he had never asked her the question. "Now, Sandra Pullman, get your arse out there and do your job. We don't tell them about Calvin's blood type. We pretend we don't know," he reminded her sternly, like she was some snot-nosed PC.

But Sandra found herself staring at Gerry. That hypothetical question was about her. She was sure of it. He knew what was wrong with her. Why she was feeling so awful. She couldn't put her finger on it herself, but Gerry knew what the problem was. "Tell me, Gerry," she implored him. "Tell me what's wrong."

He looked at her with that expression of mingled uncertainty and love, and it drove into her like a stake in her heart. "Sandra," he murmured, clearly weighing his options up very carefully. "What's wrong with you is that you're operating on instinct. The most basic, fundamental instinct of all, and you don't even know you're doing it."

"Gerry," she sighed. "What the bloody hell are you on about?!"

He was speaking in riddles; Sandra knew he did this because he didn't want to tell her, probably because he was unsure of how she would react, or of how it would affect her. To her surprise, he turned around and locked the door again, before guiding her to the bath, where they both sat on the floor and leaned against the panelling.

He watched her carefully, though this time with a sense of resignation about him. "Look, Jack and Brian don't think I should tell you. They think you're better off not knowing."

"Not knowing _what_?!" she asked, her patience wearing extremely thin now. Something stirred in her stomach, an urge to run out the room screaming. "Gerry!"

He took her hand in his and dug his other into his pocket. From his pocket, he pulled a piece of paper and handed it to her. Completely confounded by his behaviour, she cautiously took the paper from him and opened it up, not taking her eyes from Gerry's face. She didn't even look at it before she asked, "What is it?"

"Just look at it."

Reluctantly, she turned her head and read the document he had given to her. "Samantha Grace Pullman," she whispered aloud. "Father: blank. Mother: Sandra Pullman." She recoiled her hand from Gerry's and glared at him. "This is a joke."

"It's not," he sincerely answered her. "You _know_ it's no joke."

"But the chances are astronomical, Gerry!" she argued, refusing to believe what she was reading.

She had been a student, barely passable for an adult, when she found herself in a hospital in Sussex, giving birth to a baby girl. She had left home, gone to university, fully aware that she was pregnant but determined not to let it affect her future. The decision to put the baby for adoption had been made the minute Sandra had seen those two lines. Her mother, Grace, had never even known Sandra had been pregnant at all.

Could it really have come back to haunt her, after all these years?

She refused to believe it. There was no way that was her daughter, her grandson and her son-in-law a floor below. This was one of Gerry's pathetic, immature tricks on her. It was a joke. A gag. Complete nonsense.

Defiantly, she got to her feet and told Gerry, "If I ever find you pulling a prank like this again, you'll be out of my team before you can say that it was only a joke. Do I make myself clear?"

"Stop it, Sandra," Gerry ordered her, quite calmly, as he rose opposite her. "Just stop it. You know I wouldn't play a joke like that."

"But-"

" _Stop_."

"Gerry," she whispered, trying to tell him in not so many words that he had to be wrong, that he had to have caught the wrong end of the stick.

But then she remembered the chill that ran through her when she had been told of Samantha's birth details…she had known then. Not consciously, of course, but she had known on instinct at that moment. Was this why the case was making such a mess of her?

Before she knew it, Gerry's arms were around her, not judging or controlling her in any way, but embracing her; she knew that, in his eyes, she was still just Sandra Pullman. So she rested her head on his shoulder and asked him, her voice hoarse, "What am I meant to do?"

* * *

 **Please feel free to leave a review and tell me your thoughts!  
Sarah x**


End file.
